The High Court has rejected two judicial review challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to revise Irish Cement’s industrial emissions licence for its Castlemungret plant in County Limerick.
Mr Justice Twomey delivered the judgment on 26 July 2022. The applicants, Sue Ann Foley and Michelle Hayes, argued that the EPA’s decision was unlawful. The revised licence, granted on 18 May 2021, permits the plant to use processed non-hazardous waste as an alternative fuel, alongside fossil fuels, and to use alternative raw materials.
The court heard the challenges together. It rejected the applicants’ arguments concerning the environmental assessment, including claims about nitrogen emissions, chromium VI, the applicable environmental impact assessment directive and the need for a survey of moss, or bryophytes. It also rejected Ms Hayes’s argument that the EPA was limited to one request for further information under the relevant licensing regulations. On the “fit and proper person” issue, the court found the EPA was not required to give further reasons for continuing to regard Irish Cement as fit to hold a revised licence, despite three earlier convictions for dust-related licence breaches.
The judgment also drew a boundary around the case the court could decide. It found that several arguments made during the hearing had not been sufficiently set out in the applicants’ statements of grounds. These included claims about whooper swans and dolphins, the Water Framework Directive, waste proportions, emissions ducting and modelling. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction to address those unpleaded claims and did not decide their merits.
The judgment records that the seven-day hearing involved substantial argument on issues the court considered outside the pleadings. It said it would restrict its decision to claims that had been pleaded and argued, emphasizing the need for applicants in judicial review proceedings to specify their grounds.
The court rejected both challenges to the EPA’s licence decision. It directed the parties to discuss outstanding matters and provide any agreed draft order to the Registrar. The case was provisionally listed for mention on 4 October 2022 if further court orders were needed. The judgment does not state the terms of any final order beyond those directions.